


been hurt worse before

by hoosierbitch



Series: Teenage!Clint 'verse [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Chicken Soup, Hospital Feels, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Teenage!clint, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 09:16:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5158385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoosierbitch/pseuds/hoosierbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint gets hurt and winds up in medical. He has a lot of feelings about that. So does Phil. </p><p>This is not a complicated story. (Except that it really, really is.)</p><p>ETA: This series will likely remain a WiP.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Westgate (Harkpad)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harkpad/gifts).



> Chronologically, this takes place towards the end of "Problem Child."
> 
> This was written for westgateoh's prompt on tumblr (and that speaks to a need deep within us all): _I really need a new H/C fic about Clint. Preferably Clint/Coulson, but Clint/anyone really. Or just Clint. If you’ll throw together a hurt/comfort around Clint, I’ll prolly cry. Good tears._
> 
> The first two chapters were posted on tumblr [here](http://hoosierbitch.tumblr.com/post/132054502378/been-hurt-worse-before) and [here](http://hoosierbitch.tumblr.com/post/132215011918/been-hurt-worse-before-part-2)!

The first time he gets hurt at SHIELD, he hides it. They’d been practicing basic throws in hand-to-hand, and Marlene, with great concentration and zero natural ability, had grabbed Clint’s right arm instead of his left, wedged her right foot behind his ankle, stepped in the wrong direction, and promptly fallen over, taking Clint with her in their two-person Twister game. 

She’d landed on top of him, and he’d landed badly. He laughed it off so the bright-red shame on her face would go away. He liked Marlene, and he doesn’t like many people. She’d helped him up, and apologized in an endless Midwestern stream of sorries, and called him a nice sweet boy, and promised to bring him brownies next class.

So Clint had smiled and lied and slipped out of class right after.

There are icepacks in the first-aid kits scattered around the building, so Clint steals—no, borrows—a couple of them, and does his best to wrap bandages around his torso to hold the icepacks against his ribs.

The bruises Clint had worn when Coulson brought him in (deep and uneven, layer on layer) have almost faded. He can wear short-sleeve shirts now. He’d worn a completely sleeveless shirt to a hand-to-hand class last week, and Marlene had wolf-whistled at him.

It hurts though, hurts too badly to lift his arm above the level of his shoulder, and he doesn’t even think about leaning to his left–but he doesn’t think they’re broken, just cracked. Fractured. Whatever.

(When he was fourteen, he’d broken some ribs on his right side. The bruising was so obviously from the impact of fists that they couldn’t risk bringing him to a hospital, so he still doesn’t know how many ribs it was. Three, maybe four. It had felt like all of them, broken into jagged pieces, tearing him up every time he moved.)

This isn’t nearly as bad. He’s got his icepacks, and a handful of aspirin, and a safe place to retreat to. Well, as safe as any room without a lock can be. There aren’t any chairs or tables in his room, so he makes himself move a dresser in front of the door before he sits down.

The effort leaves him blanched and breathless. There is sweat trickling down his neck, sweat down his sides. The icepack feels like fire, burning through his skin and bones and lungs, but he knows he would feel worse without it. It doesn’t really matter; at this point, he doesn’t want to think about taking it off.

He gets to his bed and lowers himself onto it. By the time he’s got his legs on the mattress and his back against the wall, he is swearing and crying and grateful that no one else is there to see him like this.

*

The next morning, he blacks out trying to get out of bed.

*

Something is vibrating. No—something is loud. Maybe both. The repetitive loud thrumming sound that is maybe his heartbeat or is maybe an earthquake builds and builds.

“Stop,” he whispers.

It doesn’t stop.

Something cracks and light hits him.

*

He dreams that he is flying, lying down on his back, and Coulson is holding his hand. He glares at Coulson, taking advantage of his dream, the hand-holding asshole–and gives his hand a brutal squeeze. Or—he tries to. But his hand won’t really move the way he expects it to.

“Fuck’s wrong with my hand?” His voice is a weird mumble. Coulson turns and looks at him. He looks frantic. Something’s gone wrong. “Coulson, what’s—what’s—”

“You’re going to be fine,” Coulson says.

The light overhead—the sun? fluorescents? a spotlight?—is too bright. “Fuck you.”

They take a sharp turn and pain bursts inside of him. His hand does tighten in Coulson’s grip this time, and he knows he is hurting Coulson’s hand, and he doesn’t really want to.

“Sorry,” he gasps.

Coulson says something then, but everything’s going fuzzy, and Clint doesn’t catch what it is. It might even be something nice. He wraps himself up in the idea that maybe Coulson had said something like _Clint, you’re fine, Clint, of course I won’t leave you, Clint, Clint, Clint, everything is going to be okay._


	2. Chapter 2

He wakes up in the medical wing. He hasn’t been back since his intake appointments, but the antiseptic smell and muted white walls are burned into his memory with the clarity and detail born of fear.

He’s dressed in a light blue hospital gown, with needles and tubes going into his arm. He feels numb, numb and cold after the disorientation of waking. The drifting haze makes the gown and blankets feel soft, instead of rough, which he knows to expect.

He shifts on the bed to get a better look around the room, but is drawn up short. His wrists—

His wrists are cuffed. Fastened on either side of the bed by cuffs made from thick leather, padded with cotton on the inside.

The fire that sparks inside of him, that makes him struggle, is dumb and instinctive. He knows it’s futile, trying to escape whatever is coming next for him. A waste of energy. A show of disobedience. He should stay calm, assess the situation, try to talk his way free instead of running. (“Fight smart,” says Barney’s voice in his mind, weighted with the echo of years: “Clint, for fuck’s sake, fight smarter”).

Pain flares in his side, eclipsing his brother’s advice. Any connection there may have been between Clint’s good sense and his broken body disappears. He chokes on a gasp and curls forward, drawn toward the pain in his side.

He’d forgotten about his ribs, about Marlene and her unlucky landing, about the stolen ice packs and plan to hide. He had let himself lulled into forgetfulness by good drugs and precious dreams and aching memories.

The machines around his bed beep like a crazed mechanical chorus, and the door to his room slams open less than a minute later. He still hasn’t caught his breath; hasn’t relaxed his arms, which are straining against the cuffs, or his abdomen. There is tension in every inch of his body, launching him into delirious pain, his body readying for a fight against itself in a cycle he cannot break.

“Of course,” Coulson says, striding into the room, voice like a clap of thunder. “Of course you wake up as soon as I leave the room.” The sharp sound of his displeasure is almost comforting to Clint. It’s the voice Coulson uses when he wants to yell but can’t let himself. (Clint is very familiar with this voice, though he can’t remember Coulson directing it at anyone other than him. It feels private. Shared.) “You are, without a doubt, the most contrary, ungrateful, reckless human being I have ever met. What were you thinking? Concealing an injury of this magnitude, then locking yourself up like a paranoid squirrel—”

His voice washes over Clint, carrying him along like a branch down a river. Coulson sounds furious, but when he touches Clint, he’s almost gentle.

Clint doesn’t understand him at all.

He presses Clint back on the bed until he’s reclining on the mattress, then shifts his attention to the restraints. Clint grits his teeth, but Coulson doesn’t just check them, doesn’t tighten them—he undoes them.

“Are you really letting me go?” Clint asks. His voice sounds fuzzy to his ears.

“I am taking your restraints off, if that’s what you mean,” Coulson says, not looking at Clint. “We had to put you in them when you started flailing like an electrocuted octopus. I shudder to think what you were dreaming about.” When the second restraint is loose, dangling off the side of the bed, Coulson puts his hand on Clint’s wrist. His grip is feather light and his thumb brushes over the tape holding the IV needle in place. “I’m letting you out because you’re awake, and hopefully you won’t do further injury to yourself while conscious. Is that what you were asking?”

“Yeah,” Clint says, lying, trying not to think about the handcuffs he’d worn the first day he’d met Coulson, the handcuffs that made it hard to fight and harder to run and left bruises in rings around his wrists.

“I—may I—” The doctor, a guy in his twenties with a terrible goatee and nervous eyes, is standing in the doorway, half-in and half-out. “Agent Coulson? Can I—um, can I—examine the…patient?”

Coulson folds his arms and glares at the guy. “If you must.”

“Coulson, I don’t know this guy,” Clint blurts out, aware that he sounds like a child, but unable to keep his questions in. “Where’s Val?” He likes Val, who is the doctor who did his intake. She was old enough to be his grandmother and smelled like pot and had treated him like a person. She had been the exception to a very hard rule.

Coulson turns his glare onto Clint. His shoulders tense up instinctively, and a spasm in his side makes him cry out. He stops himself from apologizing, but only barely.

“Val doesn’t work the morning shift,” Coulson says, after a long pause. Clint nods and looks away. “However, I did page her,” Coulson continues, "and she’ll stop in here as soon as she comes on shift. This is Dr. Shah. He’s been with SHIELD for two years. He’s patched me up a time or two. He’s good at what he does.” Dr. Shah lights up like a Christmas tree under Coulson’s praise. “I trust him,” Coulson says, leaning forward, bracing himself on the mattress. "Nothing bad is going to happen to you while I’m here.”

Coulson’s pitch is more tempting than most of the sells Clint heard from sideshow frontmen during his circus years. They too had made bold, beautiful promises. They’d guaranteed unbelievable sights, unparalleled spectacles, the rarest of opportunities.

Just for a small fee, just for a night, just step in here, _don’t look too close it won’t last_ , thank you, ladies and gentlemen, _don’t come by this tent again_.


	3. Chapter 3

Clint spends the next few hours being the most irritating patient Coulson has ever had to deal with (and he includes Nicholas ‘Who needs two eyes anyway?’ Fury in that assessment). When the x-rays are done, the fractures identified, ice packs and pain meds administered, Coulson says goodbye and leaves, trying not to slam the door behind him. 

*

He is all the way to the elevator, car keys in his hands, when he lets himself turn around and walk back. 

Clint is still awake, eyes watching the door, drugs making his eyelids droop. He rests on the hospital bed like it’s a bed of nails pressed tight against his skin, begging him to jump away. 

Coulson steps all the way inside and lets the door swing shut behind him. He waits, watching Clint change gears from alert to defensive. Coulson is a known threat at this point, and Clint has a special way of watching him: eyes on his hands and hips and hidden holsters. 

Medical is as quiet as it can be, with machines constantly running, the jarring sounds of gurneys through the hallways and chatter over the intercoms. Clint’s breath is quiet and thready. Coulson consciously slows his own breath, willing Clint to match a less frenzied pace.

He feels like a dry creek bed, his adrenaline drained away and all his energy gone with it. His shoulder is badly bruised from slamming it against Clint’s door. He has a headache from clenching his jaw too tightly. 

Once the background hum has settled, Coulson asks, “Why the dresser?" The question has been digging at him since that morning, a splinter working its way under his skin. 

“What about the dresser?” Clint sounds too innocent to be convincing.

“You blocked the door to your room. We had to get a battering ram to get to you, the damn thing was wedged against the door frame so tightly.” Coulson would like to believe that it was an accident, but he knows Clint too well to read anything other than fear and intelligence in Clint’s actions.

Clint’s shoulders tighten. “Look, if you want me to pay for the damage, you’re going to have to start paying me a fucking salary first.” 

“That’s not what I—that’s not what’s important here.” Clint shoots him a look that very clearly says that Coulson is wrong. The things that are important in Clint’s world—debt and ownership, that unbalanced ledger—are foreign to Coulson. “Clint, we can replace the dresser. I’m not going to charge you for it.”

“Then what’s the big deal?”

Coulson lets out a breath. “You scared me. I was worried about you. You were hurt, and I couldn’t get to you.” He lets that truth rest between them, vulnerable and new. Clint looks utterly bewildered. “I want to know why.” Clint is avoiding his eyes now. “You knew it was bad. Your x-rays show that you’ve broken three ribs before, you know the drill.”

“My ribs aren’t broken this time,” Clint interrupts. “They’re cracked. Totally different.” 

Coulson lets his silence convey his disagreement. “Explain it to me.” 

Clint stares at his blanket-covered toes like he’s expecting them to provide the answer. Finally, he says, “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever had a real check-up before. Like, one of those doctor visits where you go when nothing’s wrong? So I went—I’ve been—” 

Clint shifts on the bed, his discomfort palpable and real. “Mom gets hurt. Barney gets hurt. I get hurt. If it’s real bad and doesn’t get better on its own, you—you go to the hospital, and you lie.” Clint finally meets Coulson’s eyes. “You get hurt, and you go to the hospital, and everything just gets worse. And prison—In prison—” He swallows his own silence and shakes his head. 

“It’s different here,” Coulson says softly. “You have to know that by now.”

“Do I? Shit, Coulson—what did you expect me to do? Come limping after you like a kicked mutt, saying ‘Hey, I fucked up, I’m useless now, want to get some fucking coffee?’”

“You’re not useless,” Coulson argues, latching onto the one part of Clint’s explanation that he can wrap his mind around quickly enough. 

“Can’t fight,” Clint says, ticking items off on his fingers. “Can’t train, can’t—can’t shoot.” His voice breaks on that last word. Furious and thin. “Am I supposed to be happy about this? I don’t even—I don’t even know what you’re going to do with me.”

“What do you mean?”

“The fuck are you going to do with me while I’m healing up? Keep me locked up in my room, with the dresser chained to the fucking wall? Keep me in here?” He gestures at the small, impersonal room, and gasps when the movement jars his ribs. Pain weaves through his words. “Or—or are you going to put me back?” 

Coulson, to his knowledge, has never hurt anyone as badly as Clint has been hurt. Has never broken anyone. Never left wounds that couldn’t heal. Coulson doesn’t deserve the fear and wary expectation that Clint directs his way with every shaky breath. It hits him like a physical, sickening blow.

“You’re a person,” Coulson says carefully, building his rebuttal piece by piece. “You’re not a toy. I’m not going to just put you on a shelf and forget about you. While you heal, we’ll just—” Honestly, he hasn’t thought it through yet. “You can probably continue going to some of your regular classes. Math. Meditation. But the rest of your time—I don’t know. Maybe you can work at the front desk.” 

“Maybe I can do what now?” 

“The front desk in the lobby—you can answer the phone. Check IDs. Give directions to the bathroom.” 

“You can’t—you really—” Clint is flailing for words. 

This seems too easy, Coulson knows; this is a kindness that Clint isn’t expected to return. A kindness he won’t understand. 

“I’ll put in a requisition for a new dresser. And I won’t have them secure it to the floor.” It is a peace offering. Clint is silent for a long time before he accepts it with a nod.

“Yeah. Okay. I'll—I can do the front desk stuff, I guess. I can try.” Clint’s voice is soft. It reaches out to that place inside of Coulson that had been terrified to find Clint missing and his room barricaded; the place inside of him that shudders under the weight of Clint’s fear. 

“Unless you need anything else,” Coulson says, “I’ll let you get some rest.” 

Clint nods and turns his sharp eyes to the door again, his body stiffening. The bed of nails under him must be sharp. 

Coulson sighs. “Are you hungry?” Clint shoots him a quizzical look. “I’m hungry. I think I’ll grab a bite from the cafeteria. I’ll bring you some crackers. Soup. Simple stuff.” He’s pretty sure Annie is on night shift, and once she finds out that her favorite bottomless pit has landed himself in medical, there’s going to be an endless supply of chicken soup. 

“They’re giving me an IV,” Clint says, like Coulson’s lost his mind. “I don’t need fucking crackers.” 

“Do you want crackers?” 

“Nobody wants crackers.” 

“What about fruit? Ginger Ale? Sprite?” Clint’s eyes narrow the tiniest bit. “Sprite, then. And whatever else I can scrounge up.” 

He’s halfway out the door when Clint asks, “So...you’re not going home? You’re coming back?” 

“Yes.” 

“But you don’t have to. I didn’t ask you to.” 

“I know.” 

Clint is staring at him with a look of utter confusion. It’s a familiar expression; Coulson wears it often. It is so strange, to know parts of someone else so intimately, only to run up against such foreign fears.

Clint Barton confuses and infuriates and fascinates him in a way that no one else ever has. 

“I’ll be right back,” he says. “No jailbreaks while I’m gone. Got it?” 

“I make no promises,” Clint replies. There is a wisp of smile around his lips. Coulson hadn’t realized how badly he’d missed it; how sweet and familiar it has become.

He forces his eyes and focus back to the door. Sprite and soup, he reminds himself. Sprite, and soup, and then he’ll need to make up other excuses to stay by Clint’s side throughout the night. 

Coulson wants his own bed. He wants his firm mattress and gourmet coffee in the morning, wants to recuperate from the challenges of the day. 

But more than that, he wants to be ready for next time. He wants Clint to come to him if he gets hurt again. He doesn’t want Clint to suddenly drop off the grid, to go somewhere Phil can’t reach him. 

So he leaves the door cracked as he leaves for the kitchen, and when he returns he settles into the uncomfortable chair like he never plans to leave.

And in the morning, when Clint wakes up, his eyes automatically turn to Coulson. Clint’s wisp of a smile, shy with sleep and confusion, makes Coulson shiver. 

Logically, Phil knows that he can’t control everything; he can’t protect Clint forever. But emotionally, physically, Clint is already his. His hurts are Coulson’s hurt. His fears are Coulson’s fears. His smiles are Phil’s smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [eta 2017: this series won't be updated, my apologies!]
> 
> Can I pre-emptively apologize for the emotional shit Phil is going to go through when Clint leaves to go after Natasha? Yes? 
> 
> Because I am very sorry. The writing process for the third chapter was kind of me going "Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting Phil Coulson goddamnit why did this even noooooo." 
> 
> [also you can [find me on tumblr now](hoosierbitch.tumblr.com)!]


End file.
